EARLY MADNESS: COLLEGE HOOPS HAS ALREADY GONE NUTS

Good coaching, good scouting, paying attention to detail. If you’re really accomplished now, you didn’t get there by chance.

“Coaching has evolved, scouting has evolved,” Carlson says. “Before, you had to stop people. Now it’s so sophisticated that it’s not how you stop them, but how you score on them. I’m not going to take anything away from Brian, but a lot of that goes on everywhere. Everybody knows what everybody’s doing.”

Just like everything else, some of them are better at it than others. But Fisher sees the craziness in this season.

“I think this is the business we’re in, but there is a touch more than what you would consider normal,” Steve says. “Some of it is absolutely mind boggling, who beats who, the way they are beaten.”

There’s a lot more even-Steven to the college game, right Steve?

“That has a lot to do with it,” he says. “There are more teams even now, for sure. Teams in the top 20 are playing teams nowhere near there, but they’ve got good players, and when they make their shots nobody knows what’s going to happen.”

The key now is winning away from home. The road has become a terribly difficult place. San Diego State may have The Show and Duke may have its Cameron Crazies, but they are not alone. There are 331 Division I men’s basketball programs, and many of them play in traps.